Close Quarters
by outtabreath
Summary: Written for the Tony/Pepper kinkmeme at LiveJournal. Tony and Pepper get stuck in a supply closet. Funtimes ensue. This is probably a strong-T, but I'm being safe.


**I really need to stop looking at the Tony/Pepper kinkmeme because, obviously, I have no self-control. This is what I did last night instead of working on AKITA and sleeping.**

**I don't own them, didn't have a beta (so PM me with mistakes, please!) and had an absolute _blast _writing this.**

**I stole the horny angel line from Jim Steinman and Meatloaf. They have the best lines_. Ever._**

****

For this prompt by anonymous on the Tony/Pepper Kinkmeme on LiveJournal: _"tony and pepper somehow end up in a small storage room in one of the conference rooms at SI. Then suddenly there's a meeting going on outside, so they're going to have to try their best to be quiet..."_

__

~*~_**Close Quarters**_** by outtabreath~*~  
**  
"And the lawyers emailed me _again_ about…."

But what exactly the lawyers had emailed was lost to the ages as I found myself suddenly propelled out of the hallway and into a conference room.

"Tony!" I yelped. "There are _cameras_ in the hall. People are going to think…."

"Shh," he whispered ignoring my protests. "She'll find us."

"Have you finally lost your mind?" I demanded insistently. I didn't use my _tell me what's going on or I will stiletto you_ tone, but I had the feeling it wasn't going to be long before I had to.

"Andrea," he said pressing his ear to the door. "Shit. I think she's coming in here."

"Andrea? From Accounting?" My mind raced. Andrea was fifty, very married and definitely not Tony's type. I couldn't fathom a reason he was hiding from her.

Unless he'd slept with her in the midst of a post-Afghanistan manic episode.

Oh God. Tony had possibly slept with Andrea from Accounting.

"Okay," I said, ramping up for a period of prolonged interrogation, "I think we need to talk..." I watched _The_ _Closer_. I knew what to do to make him _talk_.

Instead, I was pushed into a closet.

By Tony.

With Tony.

_"Hey!"_ I demanded. He clapped his hand over my mouth and I contemplated biting it. Or licking it.

Before I could decide, the palm was removed and Tony was hissing, "She's written a screenplay about me that she wants me to read. She _won't leave me alone_. Seriously, Potts, if she wasn't so nice I'd fire her."

I could vaguely hear someone moving about the room outside the door of the closet, which was small and dark; most of my attention, however, was squarely on the man standing very, very close to me.

I licked my lips - they tasted of scotch and salt and, faintly, of burnt metal. I could smell him, hear his breathing, hear the RT, feel the heat radiating from his skin…he'd recently brushed his teeth and his suit was very soft.

"Just tell her _no_," I retorted, whispering, pulling myself together, "You're good at it. You say it to me all the time."

"That's different," he countered. "You like it when I say no to you."

My boss is a genius. Bona fide and actual. I've seen the test scores, seen his inventions, seen the suit he made in a cave. From a box of scraps and medieval equipment.

(I've also seen the muscles that were developed from all of that hammering and forging and straining and sweating…).

I definitely needed to get a hold of myself.

_My boss may be __a genuis_, I reminded myself, _bona__ fide and actual, but he's also a moron._

"I do not," I hissed, and my lips hit skin. I'd misjudged the distance between us.

Fortunately, Tony was too engrossed in eluding the redoubtable Andrea to realize that I'd effectively kissed his cheek.

I was pretty sure it was his cheek.

I sincerely hoped it was his cheek.

I had to get out of the closet before I kissed something other than his cheek. And on purpose.

After all, a woman can only withstand so much temptation. It's one thing to work for an amoral, womanizing, inebriated, gorgeous genius. It's another thing entirely to work for a determined, dedicated, focused, gorgeous superhero. Who's also a genius. And a billionaire.

I should not be in a closet with said gorgeous, crusading, genius superhero.

I reached around him, my hand heading in the direction of what I was pretty sure was the door handle when his hand shot out and covered mine, arresting the motion.  
"There're people out there," he whispered. "Listen."

I focused my concentration on something other than Tony. He was right. There were definitely people in the conference room.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

There was no way Tony and I could emerge from a utility closet without…my knees shook at the thought of the email/text/internet/BBM/TMZ tsunami of crazy that would follow.

"Potts," he said softly and possibly a little helplessly.

I needed to take control of the situation, figure out what we were going to do. It was my job.

"Give me a sec," I whispered back. I pulled out my BlackBerry and pulled up the SI schedule.

Three to three-thirty in conference room 5G: Meeting of the Sunshine Committee.

I showed Tony the appointment.

"What's a sunshine committee?"

"They make sure people get cards on their birthdays and flowers when they have kids. That kind of stuff," I explained hastily.

And, perhaps, a touch too loudly.

The room on the other side of the wall was suddenly quiet. My eyes darted frantically around the closet - we were surrounded by shelves of Post-it notes and Wite-Out and boxes of pens and pencils and Sharpies and Kleenex, mops, brooms and buckets, easels and absolutely no place to hide.

I hid the phone and held my breath. Tony did the same thing. The gentle, endless hum of the RT was the only sound in the closet.

"Andrea, you're hearing things," someone finally said. "June Knight is due next month so we need to start…."

I breathed out as the panic faded; I turned on the flashlight app and looked at Tony. He looked…normal.

Of course. He was Tony mother-f-ing Stark. He didn't care what people thought of him.

But I was Pepper mother-f-ing Potts and I had a reputation to protect.

"Don't make a sound," I mouthed.

He frowned slightly and shook his head.

"Don't. Make. A. Sound," I mouthed again, slowly, exaggerating the movements of my lips.

He shrugged, confused.

I huffed silently and fumbled with the phone, shutting off the flashlight and opening up a text window. _Don't make a sound,_ I typed and held the phone up to him.

I could see his eyes spark with understanding in the dim backlight. He grabbed the phone from me and typed quickly.

_Byt 30 mn! Wil b bored._I stared at the phone, deciphering. There was a reason Tony had me and Jarvis. We knew how to type.

Or whatever it was that Jarvis did.

_Not my fault_, I typed. _I'm not the one who needs to hide from budding screenwriters.  
_  
He narrowed his eyes and typed back, surprisingly legibly, _fire alarm._

I rolled my eyes as I read his suggestion. _Using what? Matches? Lighter? Laser beams?_ I typed back, pushing the phone into his face once I was done.

He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

I typed, _only_ _twenty-eight minutes to go_ and held it up for him to read, a cheerful smile on my face.

He blinked at me and I realized that he had finally paid attention to where we were. And that we were alone. Mostly.

His expression shifted, the ambient light from the phone picked up every nuance. I could almost see the thoughts race through his head: _Pepper's breathing has picked up and I think she was going to lick my hand earlier and I need to test the new gauntlet arm thingie when I get home. I think Pepper kissed my cheek and if I foist Andrea off on the attorneys I wouldn't need to deal with _any _of them. I need to make sure Jarvis has upped the carbon emissions on the thing that goes in the feet of the suit and Pepper and I are alone in a confined space for the next twenty-eight minutes with nothing to do.  
_  
And then a _look_ spread across his face. I'd seen that look before - in the middle of a crowded dance floor, on a rooftop, before a press conference.

I was in trouble. Very big trouble.

"Potts," he whispered, stepping closer.

I could have easily fended him off by distracting him with one of the shiny new apps on my phone; after all, Tony liked new and shiny things.

I could have thrown myself out of the closet and claimed sexual harassment, won a huge lawsuit and bought a nice little Caribbean island where the people were boring and the computers weren't sarcastic.

Or, I could've kissed my boss in a storage closet with a dozen people six feet away.

Not surprisingly, I chose option three.

After all, I'd almost lost him and he'd come back a more mature and decent and hotter and _better_ version of the man I'd known for a decade.

He was finally the Tony I had always wanted him to want to be.

Ten seconds into the kiss I realized that Tony's lips were immobile beneath mine.

I was startled, hurt and horrified. In that order.

I pulled back.

Forgot that it was dark.

I turned on the backlight and held it up to him. He was staring at me, a look of shock on his face.

"I was going to suggest we play Tetris," he said quietly, leaning closer so I could see and hear and feel the words. A smile broke across his face. "But this is better. Let's do this."

"Le-," I started to agree before he swallowed the word and started on doing the same thing to my lips and tongue.

Tony's kissing skills were indescribable. Unmatched, unparalleled, exceptional.

I was aware of our mouths slipping and sliding and _molding_ together and of the fingers of my right hand clenched in a death grip around the phone.

I broke the kiss when the cramping in my hand became unbearable. I slipped the phone in my pocket and tore at the buttons on his shirt, determined to have _some_ light. I desperately wanted to see his face. Tony took my actions as permission to fumble with my buttons.

In the blue light of the RT, I could see that he was gazing at me like he did a new car: lustful, awestruck, amazed, excited. Happy.

His eyes flicked down to my chest and the gaze intensified. His fingers slid inside my bra; my fingers danced over his pecs and his abs and I attacked his mouth again

"Okay," he said against my questing lips. "Okayokayokay."

"Yes, okay," I said back as he pushed me against the one empty spot of wall gently, soundlessly, one hand splayed above my head, the other tugging at my waist. Tugging me into an intriguing addition.

I shifted a little and felt an unwelcome addition dig into my back.

"Who the hell put a mop in here?" I hissed, squirming, rubbing up against him.

He groaned, then groaned out, "Broom."

"What?" I demanded; my brain had started shutting down and I wasn't sure _what_ he was saying. Wasn't too sure I _cared_.

"Broom," he said directly into my ear. "It's a broom competing with me. I just want to you to know the broom totally ordered some of those enhancement pills of the internet - it's not natural."

"Seriously?" I asked, pulling his mouth back to mine and bucking up at him again. "You're making _jokes_?"

"It was a funny one," he said breathlessly.

"Barely," I murmured back. "Just keep kissing me."

"Happily," he said, for once doing as I asked.

I couldn't give a ripe _fig_ about jokes or brooms or mops or male enhancement pills (especially as it appeared that Tony didn't _need _them) - just Tony and his mouth and his lips and _oh God_ his tongue and the insistent heavy weight jutting against my hip.

I reached down and brushed my hand over it - trying to gauge the exact dimensions of what I was dealing with.

"Fuck," he said, biting at my lip. "_Pepper_." He retreated a few inches. "Honey, I need to know right now how far you want this to go."

I panted at him, fondness washing over me at his uncharacteristic restraint. "How far do _you_ want this to go?"

"Je-, fu- _Potts_ - I'm a changed man - personal growth born out of confinement and loss and all that…I want you, you can tell that, but…."

It was up to me.

It always had been.

I ended the whispered conversation by launching myself back at him.

"You're an angel," he murmured into the kiss. "A _horny_ angel."

I leaned back and winced.

"Maybe I shouldn't talk," he said.

"Maybe you shouldn't," I agreed before kissing him into incoherence.

The kisses deepened, altered - began to imitate more intimate activities. I tugged him closer and ground up at him relentlessly. He released my lips.

"We can't," he said into my ear before licking at it. "No condoms…."

And there was the little fact that, on the other side of a thin piece of wood, there were _people_.

"I know," I whispered back. "Iknowiknowiknowtonytonyto-."

He slid a leg between mine and pushed at my knees until I spread my legs as far as my skirt would allow me. He pushed and prodded until my skirt was around my waist and his fingers were stroking, stroking, and stroking.

I buried my face into his shoulder, mouthing wetly at the fabric, thankful that we still had a drycleaner on retainer.

Tony's fingers were deft and relentless, deviously delicious. He angled up, searching and then finding. I bit at him and screwed my eyes shut - focused on feeling him, feeling every spark and stroke, the way his fingers learned what I liked, wanted, _needed_.

"Gorgeous," he said directly into my ear. "Pepper. Please."

I nodded tightly, my hair brushing against his neck, and bore down on his fingers, wringing what I needed out of him.

"Next time I want to see you," he said into my ear, a sultry promise. "Next time I want to _hear_ you."

With that, the promise of a _next time_ - of sound and privacy and a bed - I shattered around him, gasping and moaning silently, shaking apart in his arms.

He rocked me gently, soothed me as my senses slowly returned. "You good?" he asked.

I blindly turned to kiss him, to give the answer for which I didn't have words.

"How long do we have?" he asked, playfulness tinged with desperation.

I tugged out my phone and glanced at it. "Plenty of time," I said before I opened his pants so I could thrust my hand down the front of them.

"No underwear?" I questioned as I tugged at him; he filled my hand - hard, throbbing and _wanting_. "Seriously. I know you own it. I've seen it."

"Pays to be ready in case your hot assistant decides to you jump at the office," he pointed out. It took him many, many seconds to get the words out.

"Mmmm." I pulled my hand out, ignoring his outraged look, so I could type on my BlackBerry.

"Pepper," he said, outrageously cheating by licking a stripe down the side of my neck, "Is it really necessary for you to text someone right now?"

I shoved the PDA into his hands and slid to my knees, pulling him out into my eager hands. He spared the message - _don't want to make a mess_ - a quick, distracted glance.

Then the full impact of the words jolted through him. I could feel it in the way his cock jumped and trembled.

"Fuck," he mouthed. "Fuckityfuckfuck."

_Next time_, I thought happily, and sucked him into my mouth. I could hear a soft thud. His head had fallen back against the wall. I pinched his thigh in warning. He raised a trembling hand, forming the "okay" sign before screwing his eyes shut and shoving his palm - the very one I'd wanted to taste at the beginning of all of this - into his mouth.

It didn't take long - maybe two minutes of work - before I was swallowing him down, making very sure not to let a single drop escape.

Plausible deniability, after all.

I completed my clean up job and stood - only to be pulled into the strong, defined arms of my boss. I returned the embrace, nuzzling at his neck. Memorizing.

"I think they're gone," he said several seconds later.

"Yeah," I said, stumbling back so I could put myself back together. We were silent as we re-buttoned and smoothed and ran shaking fingers through wild hair, avoiding each other's gazes, focusing on getting out.

We emerged from the closet into the empty, florescent-lit conference room and looked at each other, blinking as our eyes adjusted to the world outside our closet.

"Tony," I started, steeling myself to give him an out.

"You're incredible," he interrupted. "I know I don't say it enough, but you are."

"You never say it," I pointed out. I wasn't sure where he was going with it. I got ready for him to do to me what he'd done to scores of women before me.

"That's the past," he said instead. "And I'm all about the future - specifically getting the fuck out of here so I can spread you out on my bed and feast on you for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours."

"Eighteen," I corrected him, the smile spreading like crazy - swelling right from the tips of my perfectly pedicured toes. "We have the thing in New York tomorrow night."

His eyes glinted. "I have a bed in New York."

"Yes. You do."

He cleared his throat uncertainly and it did things to my stomach and my heart. "So, you good with my plans for the next few days? You know, to start?"

I nodded decidedly and started striding towards the door. "To start," I noted. "Now let's get out of here. I work _much _better with light and room and privacy."

"Just remember, there're cameras in the halls," he said as he fell into step beside me. "Can you keep your hands to yourself?"

I paused with my hand on the door handle. "We'll see," I said, giving him a fulminating look over my shoulder; I stepped into the hall.

He whimpered happily and followed me.


End file.
